They didnt

Religion in and of itself is not bad. It's the people who take it to the extremes and use it to justify their own twisted morals who make it bad.

Religion itself is bad because it demands wilful ignorance and shuns critical thinking. That's also why it's such an effective vehicle for toxic ideologies in the first place.

By critical thinking then everyone should believe whatever they want to. Unless you have done vast amounts of research into every system of belief then you can hardly talk. Just saying "science is right religion is wrong hurr durr" makes you just as bad as the religious fanatics who do the opposite.

What you would like to be true has absolutely nothing to do with what is actually true. I'd love to believe that I'm a multi-trillionaire who can fly and seduce any woman I desire merely by glancing in her general direction. However, I'd be a fucking idiot to actually believe it because there is no direct evidence or logically sound reasoning to support that whatsoever. Religion is in exactly the same boat.

How do you even know what I believe? I am talking from a place of common principle here, not my own beliefs. And how is just believing what scientists say any better than believing a book? Have you done the experiments yourself? Have you been doing research and tests with them? And who says science and religion can't coexist. For all we know all the rules of the universe could have been created by some higher power. It is quite literally impossible to disprove the possibility of there being some higher being.

I'm not referring to you personally, I was talking about beliefs in general. Secondly, science isn't an ideology or belief system like religion, it's simply a method of acquiring knowledge. As for your appeal to ignorance, well, the burden of proof is on the positive claim. This is extremely basic logic. If I said that unicorns are real, I'm not assumed to be correct until someone else actively disproves me. That would be stupid. It's on me to justify my position before anyone else can be expected to take me seriously. Religion is no exception. If you (again, general you, not you specifically) want to claim that there exists an all-powerful creator, then it's on you to prove it before I or anyone else can be expected to give it any amount of respect. If that offends you, tough. It's not my job to go out of my way to validate other people's idiotic beliefs just for the sake of not offending the poor little darlings.

Even if it isn't true, how does it effect you what others believe in? Contrary to what the religious fanatics would have you believe, the majority of religious people are quiet unassumung people who don't use their beliefs to harm others. Which is pretty much what you're doing right now.

As I said in the beginning, religion not only demands wilful ignorance instead of critical thinking, but it's also an ideal vehicle for extremism. Not to mention, as you've so aptly demonstrated, it's responsible for this culture where anyone who doesn't go out of their way to validate others' nonsensical belief is some sort of bigot (that only applies to religion though. If someone believes in alien abductions or bigfoot or 9/11 conspiracies, then no one expects you to "respect their beliefs"). Overall, religion is an inherently bad thing, and I firmly believe it should be treated as such, regardless of who's offended.

Religion = earned Relationship with Christ = freely given. Therefore religion is bad. You shouldnt have to earn eternity. He took your place, so eternity is already given FREE.

Spoiler Alert: None of that is actually real.

It has nothing to do with validation, it has to do with acceptance. For one the acceptance that not everyone will think or believe in the same things, and that is what makes us human. And two acceptance of even the concept that there might be more to this universe than your tiny, insignificant safety bubble. If you can't even acknowledge either of those two things then I feel really sorry for you.

Differing views and ideas are fine, but they have to have some basis in reality if they want to be taken seriously. If an idea has absolutely no evidence or logical reasoning backing it up, then it very much deserves to be dismissed as fantasy. If, as you seem to imply, religious people's egos are just too fragile to handle not being taken seriously, then again, that's their problem, not mine.